Graphic design & branding proposal template
A branding and graphic design proposal you build online and send as a branded page, with deliverables, rounds, and pricing already laid out.
The .docx is free to use anywhere, no sign-up. Building it in ProposalKit is a free 14-day trial, no credit card.
What's included
- 01 Cover
- 02 Executive Summary
- 03 The Challenge
- 04 Our Approach
- 05 Scope of Work
- 06 Investment
- 07 Timeline
- 08 About Us
- 09 Terms & Conditions
Overview
A 10-week engagement to rebuild the Northwind visual identity around the brand you've actually become and the shelves you're about to land on.
Northwind Goods has quietly turned into one of the strongest independent home fragrance brands in the Pacific Northwest. 180 SKUs, 320 wholesale accounts, and a placement with a national retailer starting Q3. Your current logo was designed for a smaller business than the one you run now.
We're proposing a focused rebrand: keep the soul of Northwind (the woodcut illustrations, the earthy palette, the handwritten founder's note), but rebuild the mechanics so the brand scales cleanly onto a 2oz travel candle, a cardboard shipper, a retail endcap, and an Instagram reel without looking like five different companies.
The work covers audit, positioning, visual identity, guidelines, and a packaging system ready to hand to your production printer. Ten weeks from kickoff to delivery. The deliverable is a brand system your team can run for the next five years without asking us what to do next.
The logo doesn't survive the shrink test
The current wordmark was drawn at ~400px wide. On a 2oz candle tin it turns to mud; the "w" and the "d" visually collapse, and the leaf ornament disappears under 8pt. Your Shopify product thumbnails are already hitting this problem at 120×120. Once you're on a retailer's shelf next to brands with identities designed for scale, the problem stops being cosmetic and starts costing you pickup rate.
The packaging system isn't a system
The Forest Line, the Coastal Line, and the Holiday Line were each designed in isolation: different typefaces, different label stocks, different photography treatments. On your own website they read as collections. On a shared retail shelf they'll read as three competing brands, which is the opposite of what shelf presence is supposed to do. A retailer's buyer will notice this in 15 seconds; we've seen orders pulled for exactly this reason.
You're about to outgrow your own guidelines
Your current "brand guidelines" are a 4-page PDF from 2021 that covers logo colors and not much else. When your new wholesale coordinator needs to build a linesheet, or your agency-of-record needs to run a seasonal social push, they're improvising, and the decisions they make stick around in your brand for years whether they're right or not. The cost of that drift is invisible until you try to fix it, usually under pressure, usually at the wrong moment.
We approach rebrands the way a good tailor approaches an alteration: you don't rebuild the suit, you fix the shoulders and the drop so it fits the person wearing it now. Northwind has a real brand. It just needs the mechanics underneath upgraded before the retail rollout.
Audit & Positioning (Weeks 1–2)
We start with a working session at your Bellingham warehouse: walk the line, photograph every SKU, pull shelf photos from your five biggest wholesale accounts. In parallel, we'll interview 6 customers (3 DTC, 3 wholesale buyers) to hear the brand described in their own words. The output is a one-page positioning document and a visual audit deck: things that are working, things that are drifting, and the handful of choices that will matter most in the rebrand.
Visual Identity (Weeks 3–5)
We present two identity directions, not three. Agencies reach for three because it lets us hedge. Two forces a real conversation. Each direction includes the wordmark, a secondary mark, the typographic system, a color palette that works in CMYK and on screen, and a photographic direction with mood references. You'll see each direction applied to four real artifacts from your own product line, not mockups of fictional brands. One revision round per direction before we narrow to the final.
Guidelines & Systems (Weeks 6–8)
Once the direction is locked, we build the guidelines document your team will actually use. Not a 60-page manifesto, but a 28-page working document that answers the questions that come up in real life: what's the minimum logo size, what fonts do we have a license for, how do I lay out a wholesale linesheet, what does a discount sticker look like without breaking the system. Delivered as a PDF and a Figma library your team can work from directly.
Packaging & Rollout (Weeks 9–10)
We redesign the master label template for each of your three product lines and deliver print-ready dielines to your printer's spec. We also build a starter rollout kit: updated homepage hero, a wholesale linesheet template, a seasonal email header template, and four social post templates. Enough to get the new brand live without us needing to produce every asset going forward.
Included
- Warehouse visit and on-site product audit (1 day in Bellingham)
- 6 customer interviews (3 DTC, 3 wholesale) with summary document
- Visual audit deck covering current-state strengths, drift, and priorities
- One-page positioning document
- 2 visual identity directions, each applied to 4 real product artifacts
- Final identity package: primary wordmark, secondary mark, typographic system, color palette (CMYK/RGB/hex/Pantone), photographic direction
- 28-page brand guidelines PDF + Figma library
- Packaging master templates for 3 product lines, delivered as print-ready dielines
- Rollout kit: homepage hero, wholesale linesheet template, email header, 4 social post templates
- 2 revision rounds per deliverable
- 14 days of post-delivery support for production questions
Not included
- New product photography (we can recommend 3 photographers in your price range)
- Website redesign or development (we're handing off to your Shopify developer)
- Printing, production, or press approvals (handled by your existing vendors)
- Trademark search or registration (please work with your IP counsel)
Audit & Positioning
Warehouse visit, 6 customer interviews, visual audit deck, positioning document
Visual Identity Design
2 directions, real-artifact application, final wordmark, typography, color, photo direction
Brand Guidelines & Figma Library
28-page guidelines PDF plus a working Figma library your team can build from
Packaging System
Master label templates for 3 product lines, delivered as print-ready dielines
Launch Rollout Kit
Homepage hero, wholesale linesheet template, email header, 4 social post templates
Production Support
14 days of post-delivery support for printer questions and small corrections
$24,500
Phase 1: Audit & Positioning
Weeks 1–2. Kickoff call, warehouse visit, customer interviews, visual audit. You approve the positioning document before design starts.
Phase 2: Visual Identity
Weeks 3–5. Two directions presented end of week 3. One revision round per direction. Final direction locked end of week 5.
Phase 3: Guidelines & Systems
Weeks 6–8. Guidelines document, Figma library, full color and type specification. You'll see the guidelines in draft at end of week 7 with one revision round before final.
Phase 4: Packaging & Rollout
Weeks 9–10. Packaging templates delivered to your printer. Rollout kit delivered to your marketing coordinator. Final handoff call walks through every asset.
Production Support
Weeks 11–12. 14 days of included support for printer questions, small corrections, and anything that surfaces during the first wave of new packaging production.
Halftone Brand Co. is a 3-person brand studio in Portland. We work with independent consumer brands (food, home goods, personal care, apparel) that have found their audience and need the visual identity to catch up. We don't work with SaaS, we don't work with venture-stage startups, and we don't take on more than four engagements per quarter.
Recent work
- Field Day Mercantile (general store brand, 4 locations)
- Sorrel & Oak (skincare, wholesale rollout to 180 spas)
- Lumen Lab Candles (candle brand, packaging redesign for Target launch)
- Eastwind Coffee Roasters (café + wholesale, full rebrand)
How we work
Your point of contact is the person doing the design. No strategists handing off to juniors, no revision loops through three layers of review.
What clients say
"Halftone took our brand seriously in a way that bigger shops never did. They understood that our customers love the story, and they got the packaging to finally match it."
Grace Okafor, Founder, Sorrel & Oak
Payment Schedule
- 40% ($9,800) due upon signing
- 40% ($9,800) due at the start of Phase 3 (Guidelines & Systems)
- 20% ($4,900) due on final delivery
Invoices are payable within 14 days via ACH or check. Card payment is available with a 3% processing fee.
Revisions
Two structured revision rounds are included per deliverable. Additional rounds, or changes to previously approved work, are billed at $150/hour with a written estimate before any work begins.
Intellectual Property
On final payment, all final deliverables (wordmark, visual assets, guidelines, Figma library, packaging dielines) transfer to Northwind Goods with full ownership. Halftone retains the right to display the work in our portfolio and case studies unless you ask us not to (and we'll respect that without argument).
Preliminary concepts and unused directions remain the property of Halftone Brand Co. and may be adapted for future unrelated projects.
Timeline & Delays
The 10-week timeline assumes feedback within 3 business days of each deliverable and that the warehouse visit happens in Week 1 as scheduled. Delays in either extend the timeline one-for-one. If a phase is delayed by more than 10 business days due to client-side availability, we may need to reschedule remaining phases around other client commitments.
Cancellation
Either party may cancel with 14 days written notice. Northwind Goods is billed for work completed to date plus any third-party costs already committed. We don't charge a cancellation fee.
Proposal Validity
This proposal is valid for 30 days from the cover date. After that, please ask for an updated version. Pricing and availability may have changed.
Branding work is subjective, which makes the proposal the place to make it concrete. The template structures the engagement around named deliverables, a defined number of revision rounds, and usage rights, so "design a brand" becomes a scope both sides can hold each other to.
It is built for the way studios price identity and design work: a clear list of artifacts the client receives, rounds capped in writing, and ownership settled before the first concept. Swap in the client's brief, set your pricing, and publish. The proposal arrives as a branded link that shows your own design sensibility, you see when it is read, and the client signs on the page.
Turn a subjective brief into countable deliverables
"A new brand identity" is not a scope. A logo suite, a color and type system, and a one-page brand guide are. The deliverables section pushes you to list the artifacts the client receives, which is what protects you when taste enters the conversation.
Spell out formats and handoff. Source files, exported assets, and the brand guide are different deliverables, and saying which the client gets, in what formats, removes the awkward conversation that otherwise happens the week after the invoice.
Cap revision rounds in writing
Unlimited revisions is how creative projects bleed margin. The scope section gives you a place to state the number of rounds included and the rate for additional ones. Clients respect a clear limit; what frustrates them is discovering the limit after they have crossed it.
Define what a round is. One consolidated set of feedback is a round; three separate emails over a week is three. Saying so up front keeps the count honest and keeps a single indecisive stakeholder from quietly turning a two-round project into five.
Be explicit about usage and ownership
Who owns the final files, what rights transfer, and when, are questions that surface after the invoice if you leave them out. The terms section is the place to settle ownership and usage so the handoff is clean.
Tie transfer to final payment if that is how you work. Stating that ownership of the final marks passes on receipt of the last invoice is standard, fair, and far easier to agree to in the proposal than to introduce once the work is done.
How the template is structured
The starting structure runs cover, executive summary, the challenge, your approach, scope of work, investment, timeline, about, and terms. Each section opens with a prompt suited to identity work, so you are editing toward a finished branding proposal rather than building one from a blank document.
Make it yours. Rename sections, drop what a given engagement does not need, and reorder so your strongest case leads. The design system owns the layout, so the proposal looks considered however you arrange it, which for a design studio is the proposal doing its own audition.
Send it as a page, not a file
Once the proposal reads the way you want, you do not export it and attach it to an email. You publish it as a branded link on your own page. The client opens it in the browser, on a phone or a laptop, with no download and no account to create.
That changes what happens after you hit send. You see when the proposal was opened, how many times, and which sections held attention, so a follow-up is timed to a signal instead of a guess. When the client is ready, they accept and sign on the page, and the proposal locks. You get a clean PDF with the signature and an audit trail attached, which is the copy that gets filed and forwarded internally.
Related reading: Proposal design .
Branding proposal template: FAQ
What should a graphic design or branding proposal include?
Turn the brief into countable deliverables (a logo suite, a color and type system, a brand guide), state the number of revision rounds and what counts as a round, and settle usage rights and ownership. This template structures the engagement around those, which is what protects you once taste enters the conversation.
Is the branding proposal template free?
Yes. Download the .docx at no cost and use it anywhere. Building the same branding proposal in ProposalKit is free for 14 days, with no card required.
Can I edit the template in Microsoft Word or Google Docs?
Yes. The download is a standard .docx, so it opens in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and Pages. You can also build it online in ProposalKit and send a branded page that shows your own design sensibility.
How many revision rounds should a branding proposal include?
State a specific number and the rate for additional rounds, and define what a round is: one consolidated set of feedback, not three emails over a week. A clear limit in writing is what keeps a single indecisive stakeholder from turning a two-round project into five.